Improvement in shafts for sleighs



C. H. BUTTERFIELD.

Shaft for Sleighs. i No. 86,131. i Patented lany 216, 1869.

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freely on the shaft C, and has a clamp-screw, el, which is screwed into such collar and against the outer surface ofthe shaft C. The purpose of this clamp-screw is to so fasten the thills to the shaft C as to cause it to turn with them, while they are moved up or down by a horse while travelling.

elling, when they are arranged side by side, and with manner by a cross-bar, a.

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Letters Patent No. 86,131,

dated January 26, 1869.

IMPROVEMENT IN SHAITS FOR SLEIG-HS.

The Schedule refer-'red to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

"Nro- To all persons to whom these presents may come:

Be it known that I, CHARLES H. BUTTERFLELD, of Westborough, in the county of Worcester, and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Sleigh-Runners and Shaft-Connections; and I do hereby the same to be fully described in the following speciiication, and represented in the accompanying drawings, of`which Figure 1 is a top View, and

Figure 2, a side elevation of a pair of shafts or thills, and a set of sleigh-runners, with my invention applied to them.

Figure 3 is a section, taken in line of the axis of the tubnlarconnection-shaft.

The purpose of my improved means of connecting the runners and the shafts or thills, is toV enable the latter to be moved laterally,.with respect to the former, in order that a horse, when tackled in the thills, may travel in the track which one of a pair of draught-animals, harnessed or yoked to a sled, usually makes intravthe sled-tongue extending between them.

The object of my improvement is hereinafter stated. In the drawingsp A A denote the pair 0f sleigh-runners, and B B, the thills, the said thills being connected in the usual Two tubular bearings, h` h, project from the noses of the two runners.

A tubular shaft, C, goes through these bearings, and has male screws, b b, formed on it, to screw into corresponding female screws, c c, made in the bearings.

There is inserted into the shaft (l, at one end thereof, a cylindrical rod, D, which4 slides freely in the shaft, and is projected from and goes through one of the collars it" of the thills. The collar 'if' slides and turns -The screws of the shaft Oadniit it to turn, and steady it, so as to prevent it from rattling in its bearings.

There extends, obliquely, from the slide-shaft or rod D, a brace, E, through whose rear part a long rod or staple, F, extends, suchn'od or staple being arranged and iixed to the cross-bar e ofthe runners.

The brace slides on the staple or rod, while the thills may be in the act of being moved laterally, and such brace and staple, after the thills may have been so moved aside, are to give support to them under the draught ofthe horse.

A spring-latch, j, arranged as represented, and fastened, at its middle, to the bar e, and within the shaft,

is employed to hold the thills in either of their extreme positions.

From the above it will be seen that with the mechanism hereinbefore described, the thills may be arranged so as to bring a horse,-when between them, in alignment with the middle line of the vehicle, or they may be moved laterally, so as to bring him on one side 'of such line.

The brace and the staple, with the latch, when combined with the remainder of the shaft-connection, such remainder of itself not being claimed as new by me, admit of the rod D being moved longitudinally in the hollow shaft C, and aiiord support to such rod, so as to prevent draught on the thills from bending the rod when it is in the position as shown in the drawings.

I claim the brace E, and its supportinglrod or stapleF, in combination with the thills and their runner'- connection, as described,-such runner-connection consisting of the tubular rocker-shaft G, the slider D, theV 

